Loss
by SophieRomanoff
Summary: 'Natalia Alianova Romanova and Clinton Francis Barton were no strangers to loss. It permeated every part of their lives.' A look into out favourite assassins' pasts, from childhood to present day. 'Natasha and Clint had lost a lot in their lifetimes. But they'd also gained a great deal too.' An introspective into their losses/gains.


Hello everyone! Welcome to day 31, the final chapter! Don't forget to save my page if you want future updates of other fics. I have ao3 exclusive fics over at SophieRomanoff97. This last word came from best friend Cassidy, because I'm an idiot and didn't count correctly. There were only 30 prompt words but I couldn't leave you guys hanging. I think it's the perfect word to finish on.

Warnings for violence, rape/non-con, death, mention of a suicide attempt

Please drop me a comment if you enjoyed and tell me your favourite chapter! Enjoy 😚😚😚

LOSS

Natalia Alianova Romanova and Clinton Francis Barton were no strangers to loss.

It permeated every part of their lives and left them gasping for breath in hotel bathrooms.

Natasha had been three years old when she first felt loss.

She'd been sleeping in front of the fire, her little brother in her mother's arms as she rocked him to sleep as well.

Her father had been cooking them a late dinner, with whatever scraps they'd gotten from the market.

They didn't have money, but they had a roof over their heads and the kids never went a day without a hot meal in their stomachs.

Natasha had drifted to sleep with the beautiful sounds of her mother's singing in her ears.

She woke up to carnage.

Their house was on fire, smoke was crawling its way into her mouth and filling her chest.

She'd screamed for her mother, for her father and for her brother.

She never saw them again.

She was pulled from the wreckage of her home, dragged across the dirt, mud and rocks clinging to her body.

They'd held her metres from the flames, as she'd screamed until her voice had gone.

They'd put a bag over her head and she woke up chained to a bed in a room with fifteen other girls.

They told her her family had died but that she had been saved.

The first loss and maybe the hardest, losing her family.

She and Clint had both lost their families, though Clint's memories of his family were less than pleasant.

His father beat the shit out of him, his brother and his mother.

His mother tried to protect them, but his father loved to hit something smaller than him.

For seven years, it had continued.

Until the police man turned up at their door.

His parents had died in a car crash and whilst Barney had never said he had anything to do with it, Clint suspected he had.

The loss he felt then was nothing compared to the loss of his brother. To him, his father had been an awful piece of shit and his mother had been weak and unable to protect them.

His brother had always taken his father's fists for him.

He and Barney had been alone for a year before child services started poking around.

They fled their home before they could be split up.

Barney brought a flier to him, the circus wanted performers.

It was decided then.

They spent their next year at the circus.

Clint found out he was actually good at something, archery, he only got better with each passing day.

Soon the circus members were calling him Trickshot and he was one of the most popular acts.

That was when his brother left.

This loss was different, because Barney wasn't dead, not then anyway, but he was just gone one day.

Clint was left alone at the circus and soon they became tired of his tricks.

But they refused to let him leave, he pulled in too much money.

So he ran. Ran far away and tried to never look back.

Loss didn't just come in the form of death, not always.

Natasha had learned to kill by the time she was five. She'd lost her innocence years before, but learning to kill was...it forced her to abandon any hope that her life would ever be happy again.

She'd lost not only her innocence, but had lost anything of who she had been born to be.

She'd lost her easy, happy smile. She'd lost her quick laughter and happy singing. She'd lost the memories of those who bore her into the world. She lost their faces, then their voices, then even their names.

She was twelve when they first forced her to have sexual intercourse.

It was another test. If the men didn't like her, then she wouldn't be put through the graduation ceremony because she would be dead.

Another piece of her innocence was taken that night, by a man thirty years older than her, with a sharp grin and malice in his eyes.

She'd excelled at it. The men and women loved her, always asking for little Natalia when they came to visit.

She had lost her ability to have children, taken away with a three hour operation and a day of recovery.

Her childhood stolen, her virginity taken, her innocence absolved.

Clint's story wasn't as harsh to him, but was still harrowing.

He'd ran from the circus and had lived on the streets until he was sixteen.

He'd lost a lot on the streets.

He lost his sweetness and his kindness. He stopped giving out spare food or change and kept it for himself.

He no longer stopped to chat with the other homeless, or to stroke the stray animals.

He was hard now, he had to be to survive in the cold, alone.

He lost who he was on those streets. Everything he had been had been stripped back until he was a shell.

Just a shell trying to live through each day.

On his sixteenth birthday, he enrolled in the army.

He lost his virginity three nights later, with a man he didn't even like let alone think was attractive.

But he was desperate for human touch.

He lost his self-respect that night.

...

Over the course of their lives, Clint and Natasha had lost a lot.

One thing they'd lost and gained back was their want for life.

Clint had never attempted suicide but he'd thought it over a lot.

He'd wanted to die before.

He'd wanted to just not...live anymore.

Natasha had tried to kill herself. One week after coming to America, she had attempted suicide.

Clint had found her and saved her life.

She'd wanted to just not be alive either.

It had been one of the first fucked up things they'd bonded over.

...

Loss didn't always mean death.

But sometimes it did.

Phil had died and Clint and Natasha had once felt the sharp pain of loss.

They held each other that night, crying in earnest and lamenting everything they'd lost.

Innocence, childhood, lust for life, themselves, people they loved, who they were, Clint had lost his hearing, Natasha had lost a few extremities, and more.

Natasha and Clint had lost a lot in their lifetimes.

But they'd also gained a great deal too.

...

When an American agent turned up at her safe house in Russia, Natasha had thought she would lose the only thing she had left to give.

Her life.

But he had knelt in front of her, had put a hand on his shoulder and asked her to come with him.

They had gained back their want for life together, clawing desperately to everything they could.

They'd both gained Shield, and a handler whom they loved very much.

They would lose him later, but that gain had been worth the pain when Phil was gone.

They had gained a job they loved. They fought for people who couldn't fight for themselves and yes, maybe they had been Hydra all along but they had helped, saved so many people it was almost worth it.

They gained friends, friends they thought they'd never have.

Maria Hill, Nick Fury, Bobbi Morse, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Thor Odinson, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes.

They gained a team, and a family.

They gained status. They were The Avengers and they saved lives.

They gained fans. They got piles and piles of fan letters and gifts.

Natasha and Clint were richer than they'd ever been, in more than one way.

They had lost so much but gained so much more.

Most importantly, to them, they had gained each other.

They had gained themselves back, had clawed and fought to get back what they'd lost as children.

With each other to help them, they slowly, piece by piece, got back who they had once been.

Together, they could do anything.

Together, even the harshest losses were a little better.

Together, they would face every loss coming their way because what they had gained together, would never be lost again.


End file.
